Olivier Gabet, director of decorative arts at the Louvre Museum since 2022, is pushing back against suggestions to display valuable jewels in less accessible spaces like the museum’s basement, or to present copies to the public while the real objects are stored in a secure vault.

“To think that we could replace the original works with copies is almost to deny their very nature,” Gabet told Le Monde in an interview.

Gabet’s comments come in the aftermath of thieves breaking into the Louvre on the morning of Sunday, October 19, and stealing nine objects form the gilded Apollo Gallery, where a wide array of the French crown jewels are regularly on view.  

The thieves—two of whom were arrested on October 24—dropped one of the items, Empress Eugénie’s crown, while fleeing the museum. In